It’s down to the wire in Ontario’s summer by-elections
in what some pundits are calling a mini-provincial election
that comes almost two years after the last general election.
One year after by-elections in Vaughan and Kitchener-Waterloo,
the province has once again been plunged into summer votes, but
this time in five ridings in different regions of Ontario.

Premier Kathleen Wynne caught few off guard earlier this month
when she called highly anticipated by-elections in the ridings
of Windsor-Tecumseh, London West, Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Scarborough-Guildwood,
and Ottawa South for August 1st.

The vacant ridings – all previously held by Liberal MPPs – were
freed up after a string of cabinet resignations, including
those of heavyweights Dwight Duncan, Chris Bentley, Laurel
Broten,
and the former premier himself, Dalton McGuinty.

And while the outcomes of these five by-elections cannot
alter the balance of power for the Liberal minority government,
the
votes fall at an intriguing time in the province’s
political history: at the mid-point of the Liberals’ minority
mandate and six months into Wynne’s premiership.

The Stakes

The rookie premier has been widely praised for her governing
style over the past six months. But these five by-elections
signify her first real test at the hands of voters.
While the Grits are
unlikely to hold on to all five ridings, the retention
of a handful of these seats would amount to a significant
feat.

For a party that many in the media have suggested is
in a death spiral, Wynne’s Liberals have managed to attract several
first rate candidates. A high-profile Toronto city councilor,
a CEO of a prominent NGO, a teachers’ union president,
a senior aide to the former premier. Not bad.

But the stakes are not only high for the rookie premier – they
are arguably higher for her chief opponent, PC Leader Tim Hudak.
After a humbling electoral result two years ago, Mr. Hudak is
attempting to re-introduce himself to Ontario voters. The Tory
leader is pleading for something few political leaders get – a
second chance.

Gone are the gimmicky policy proposals and provocative
campaign literature –perceived as homophobic and xenophobic by some
voters. Enter the new Tim Hudak – the policy wonk extraordinaire
who promises to solve Ontario’s ‘jobs crisis’,
eliminate Ontario’s deficit and debt problem, and throw
out the province’s labour laws by making Ontario a “right
to work” province.

But if Mr. Hudak is to ask for a second chance
from Ontario voters, he’ll need to command the confidence of his party first.
Plagued by discontent over his leadership from within his party,
the by-elections provide Hudak with the opportunity to prove
his detractors wrong. Hudak will need to steal at least one seat
from the Wynne Liberals – preferably in Toronto – to
placate those within his party who view him as a liability (some
of Hudak’s detractors are eager to replace him with the
party’s more telegenic deputy leader, Christine Elliot).

Make no mistake, there is nothing Mr. Hudak
would like more than a conservative beachhead
in Toronto.
The
Tory leader
is acutely
aware that the path to a majority government
lies through the Greater Toronto Area. But
the Ontario
Liberal brand
is resilient
in the GTA – in power for a decade now, the governing party’s
support appears strong in much of the Toronto region.

Meanwhile, NDP leader Andrea Horwath is licking
her wounds after a spring legislative session
where she
was out-maneuvered
by
the rookie premier. After weeks of oscillating
between supporting the government or voting
it down, Horwath
opted to support
Wynne’s
budget, ultimately endorsing the economic blueprint unveiled
by Finance Minister Charles Sousa.

Horwath and her party are betting their
budget gambit will pay dividends – they can justifiably tell voters they extracted
concrete policy concessions from the Liberal government on auto
insurance, welfare rates, home care services, and accountability
mechanisms. But in spite of Horwath’s success on this
front, some voters perceive the NDP as propping up a government
they
do not support.

Three By-Election Axioms

As voting day approaches, political followers would be well advised
to remind themselves of three well-observed truths:

1. Governing parties – more often than not – don’t
win by-elections

Voters are fickle and intuitively see by-elections as an
opportunity to send their government a message, without
going so far as changing
the captain of the ship. Premier Wynne said as much in
a recent press conference where she acknowledged these by-elections
provide
voters with an opportunity to air their grievances in hopes
the government is listening.

But Ontario’s Liberal government has enjoyed an unusually
resilient record when it comes to retaining incumbent seats in
by-election periods. All four by-elections held in Liberal-held
seats in the past four years resulted in Liberal victories – in
the ridings of St. Paul’s, Toronto Centre, Ottawa West-Nepean,
and Vaughan. In that same period, Andrea Horwath’s NDP
won an impressive victory at the Conservatives’expense
in Kitchener-Waterloo in September 2012, leaving Tim
Hudak short one seat at Queen’s Park.

2. In by-elections, the importance of the local candidate
is bolstered – the role of the leader is less influential

With the absence of a general election backdrop, by-elections
are often truly local contests where a strong candidate
can champion a cause or issue and emerge victorious – notwithstanding
their party banner or leader.
With no leaders’ debates or the extensive media coverage
that accompanies a provincial election, most voters simply tune
out. This is especially the case for these five by-elections
being held in the dog days of summer when most Ontarians are
focused on summertime activities – not partisan
politics.
Given this reality, the party leaders and their platforms’ are
unlikely to figure prominently into the by-election results on
August 1st. This can be frustrating for party organizers but
it underlines the importance of bullet-proof candidates armed
with a profile and tested track record in their communities – popularly
referred to as the ‘star candidate.’ It comes as
no surprise then, that the major parties have all put fourth ‘star
candidates’ in hopes of luring Ontarians to the
polls.

3. Voter turnout is typically extremely low – the ‘get
out the vote’ (GOTV) strategy can determine
which candidate wins the election

This last axiom is one political operatives live
by. This principle is prefaced on the idea that
victory in local
votes is not based
so much upon persuading non-identified voters
(not aligned with a party) to support your party, but
rather,
in identifying
your
supporters and mobilizing them on election day.
And while the GOTV strategy is crucial throughout
any election campaign, it’s even more critical in a by-election scenario
where voter turnout is regularly below 30 per cent. Aggressively
mobilizing candidate support through advanced polls and election
day voting – facilitated by advanced technology – has
become a staple of any winning campaign in the 21st century.
Moreover, in a by-election scenario, it more often than
not determines the victor.

Two Local Battles To Watch For

While all five by-elections have turned out to
be hard-fought battles characterized by several
unanticipated
twists
and turns, the London West and Etobicoke-Lakeshore
races bear
analysis.

In London West, an unforeseen three-way race
has broken out on the heels of former Energy
Minister
Chris Bentley’s sudden
departure from Queen’s Park earlier this year. A powerful
minister in the McGuinty cabinet, Bentley held the affluent London
riding for a decade, romping to victory against Tory candidate
Ali Chabar by over 8,000 votes less than two years ago. Today,
Chabar – a young London lawyer – is running again,
this time against a star Liberal candidate. In a surprise move,
Liberals recruited former teachers’ union head Ken Coran
to carry their banner in London West. This, in spite of Coran
leading Ontario’s high school teachers in a tense
labour dispute with the government last year.

For his part, Coran has credited Premier
Wynne with persuading him to run for
the party, saying
he believes
in her values.
In many respects, Coran’s return to the Liberal fold is illustrative
of Wynne’s new approach and her ability to attract top
level talent and diverse voices to the party. Coran is also being
challenged on the left by the NDP’s Peggy Sattler, a London
School Board Trustee and former Coran ally, making for an interesting
twist. The race became somewhat peculiar when Coran nabbed the
endorsement of the local secondary teachers’ union, while
Sattler received an endorsement from the local Elementary teachers’ union,
pitting one teachers’ union against the other.

In the Toronto riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore,
two high-profile city councillors – both charter members of Mayor Rob Ford’s
executive committee – are squaring off against each other
in what has become a horse-race. Liberal Peter Milczyn is a lifelong
Etobicoke resident who has represented the riding at Toronto
City Hall since 2000. Tory Doug Holyday is the city’s
Deputy Mayor and the last mayor of the former city of
Etobicoke.

Before Doug Holyday’s late entry into the race, the riding
was seen as a Liberal stronghold – former Liberal cabinet
minister Laurel Broten held the constituency for a decade and
defeated her Tory opponent in 2011 by nearly 10,000 votes – a
landslide. But Holyday is a legend in Etobicoke and overnight
his candidacy radically altered the dynamics in this
local race.

Since early July, both the PC and
Liberal parties have been pulling
out all the
stops in an effort
to win
this battleground
riding.
A Toronto-native, this is precisely
the sort of riding Wynne would
want to hold
on to
if she is
to earn
another mandate
from the Ontario people. On the
other hand, if Hudak is ever to form
a government, he’ll need to nab several ridings that fit
this community’s demographics – urban, highly-educated,
with a sizable immigrant population.

But what is so intriguing about
this battle is the public role
the Ford
brothers are
playing in a provincial
by-election,
albeit on their own political
turf. This, after a disastrous past few
months for the mayor and his
brother Doug as allegations of
drug use eclipsed city hall’s business. And as one of the most
visible faces of the Ford administration, Doug Holyday appears
to be tapping into ‘Ford Nation’ (whom appear emboldened
after recent events) in his quest for a seat at Queen’s
Park.

The Ford brothers have backed
the avuncular politician publicly
(in
exchange for
his loyalty), officially
endorsing Holyday’s
candidacy earlier this month. But it remains to be seen whether
the Ford brothers’ support will prove futile or
a blessing in disguise. What is most puzzling is the
absence of Tim Hudak
in this high profile race, ostensibly replaced by the
Ford brothers as the spokespeople for conservatism in
Ontario.
The outcomes of the by-elections
appear more precarious than
they did two weeks
ago. Nevertheless,
it seems
much of the
punditocracy is musing on the
significance of these local
votes.

When the polls roll in Thursday
evening, watch for every
political party and
interest group
to look
to take credit
for the results – whatever
they may be. In the aftermath of the Vaughan and Kitchener-Waterloo
votes last summer, we witnessed exactly that – a
public relations campaign (post-campaign) spearheaded
by all three
parties to spin the results in an attempt to buttress
their respective
message tracks.

But at the end of the day,
it bears underlining that
by-elections more
often than not
take on lives of
their own – in other
words, they are not necessarily an accurate predictor of future
political events, nor do they have to foreshadow what is to come.
It’s a simple, but useful point to remember as we approach
Thursday evening’s results.

Andrew Perez, BJ, MPP, is a Toronto-based writer and political
activist. Andrew has considerable experience working in public
policy and politics, having worked as a Parliamentary Intern
in Ottawa where he worked for both a government and an opposition
Member of Parliament. He has also worked for the Liberal Party
of Canada, and completed internships at Queen’s Park and
on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. Most recently, he worked as
an advisor on the Sandra Pupatello leadership campaign in Ontario,
briefing the candidate and senior campaign team on issues management.
Andrew holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton University,
and a Master of Public Policy from the University of Toronto.